Boys Soccer: New faces, Christian Clark, Rankings, Standings, Stats

Neither of the two teams playing in the Winter Soccer Classic Gold Division final on Saturday night, Foothill or Deer Valley, made the North Coast Section playoffs last season.
Don’t expect that to be the case this season.
The Falcons, who haven’t allowed a goal in five games this year, are obviously undefeated because you can’t lose if you don’t give up any goals. They improved to 4-0-1 after a 4-0 win over the Wolverines, bringing home the WSC championship.
Now the Falcons look to get into the playoffs for the first time in seven years and are in a great position to break that stretch. They have solid talent up front with Christian Clark, Cody Hall and Nick Goldstein and a solid defense that will allow them to stay in games and make a run towards the playoffs.
Don’t be fooled, however, by the 4-0 score, and think Deer Valley isn’t a legit playoff team, because the Wolverines are and they could challenge for the BVAL title.
The game was 1-0 into the final 10 minutes, and Deer Valley was down to 10 men. So in the Wolverines defense, the game was fairly competitive. Both teams will be in the playoff picture this year.
Alameda, Freedom, Heritage and Liberty are teams that missed the playoffs last year, that could be teams to keep an eye on this year in Division I, while teams like College Park and Dougherty Valley look like teams ready to turn the corner.
Candidates to turn the corner or make the playoffs in Division II? Hayward might very well be the best team in Division II. Time will tell, but the Farmers seem to have something working this year. Hercules also is a team to keep an eye on with Jeremy Romero lighting up the scoreboard.
Northgate and St. Joseph Notre Dame are two teams that missed the playoffs last year, that I think are going to get in this year.
There should be some change in both divisions, which will keep things exciting.

Getting to know Foothill’s Christian Clark

Christian Clark has been a four-year starter for the Falcons, but with the team not having as much success as they’d like, he’s been under the radar. However, this is one of the more exciting players in the East Bay. So let’s get to know him a bit.
He spent five years of his childhood, between ages 4-9, in England, and so soccer came naturally to him because of this. He follows the English Premier League and roots for Chelsea. As a 9-year old, he was actually recruited to play for the Chelsea youth academy. His favorite player is Michael Owen.
He believes the Falcons can have a good year, saying that he is “excited” about the season, but to get where they want to be, it will “take a whole lot of hard work.”

Rankings

The first full week of action brings some shift in the rankings. It looks like Amador Valley is for real, and deservedly jumps into the top three. Division I is well represented in the top ten as SRV, Cal, Pitt, MV and Newark Memorial have all played well so far this year.
Acalanes jumps up to No. 4 and takes over as the top Division II team, but Bishop O’Dowd has yet to play. Also Hayward and YV will be climbing up the rankings from this point.
Berkeley and Foothill debut in the Top 15 for the first time this early season.

Matt Smith

Post navigation

The DVAL certainly is interesting this year. YV looks like the team to beat, but CP can contend, especially given the tough schedule they are playing will have them ready for league. Northgate is the dark horse. Will be interesting to see how they do.

Matt Smith

San Leandro 4, Encinal 1

bkells

Test today for the Don’s against College Park.CP has had a few tough opponents in their schedule.AV has chance win TRV today and stay undefeated.EBAL season around corner

Monte Vista goes up 1-0 on a header in the 32nd minute against Pitt. If this result holds, MV wins the TVC.

Matt Smith

Pitt equalizer negated on an offside call.

Matt Smith

Monte Vista up 2-1. It was 2-0. Pitt has since scored, missed a PK and had another goal wiped out by offsides.

Matt Smith

Monte Vista up 3-1 with seven minutes left. As long as they don’t give up two goals, they’ve won the TVC.

Pitts fan

Refs put their imprint on this game. Lots of questionable calls both ways.

MV has some skille and burners in the front. Reed and their sub #4 can absolutely fly

concrete17

Hey Matt….Tell EBPC to loosen up the purse strings and let you have a live, real, rolling blog site for soccer like football has. Sure you have enough followers…..unless you’re shooting to be the king of messages/replies.
Good job. I don’t even follow soccer but can never resist an action, minute by minute ticker.

HalaMadrid

Any one care to comment about the YV vs Hayward game??

Matt Smith

Concrete17! Thanks man.

SRV up 1-0 on Richmond.

Matt Smith

YV beat Hayward 5-2.

Matt Smith

Cal beat Dougherty Valley 2-1.

Matt Smith

Montes equalizes. 1-1.

HalaMadrid

Wow.. ayala with 4 goals and an assist against the talent that is Hayward, looks like Ygnacio valley is at it again.

Juan Pito

College Park looked strong, Amador not as good as their previous games, still a force. The Pitt-MV game was thrilling and an overall good game between two very good teams. Expect all 4 of these teams to be competing for NCS along with the almighty De La Salle.

Ebalfan123

Richmond San Ramon update?

joga bonito

Whats the score on the richmond vs san ramon

tony paige

@Juan Pito agree with comment on CP strength, solid all round team. AV had 2 starters that missed game and another missed first half. Also head coach was not at game. Not sufficient excuse for giving away TVC though as they still had enough talent to win but could not finish when it counted. MV looked very strong and is well balanced team and deserved to win Pitt game and TVC. Congrats to MV. EBAL quality will be fantastic.

nikessss

who won richmond san ramon game??

Matt Smith

Richmond and SRV ended 1-1.

bkells

Hey Juan Pinto….Amador as well as MV and Cal will challenge DLS this year.I still like the Dons roster from top to bottom.AV was sluggish today and without their leader.Watch for Dons to improve and get back on track this week

T. Powell

MacG, as a player from last years NCS title run, the Ball Whisperer is unpredictable and I don’t even know if he will make appearances throughout the season. After O’Dowd’s loss last night to Alameda he may be needed.
Ygnacio Valley’s win today against Hayward shows their true dominance in D2 and it would be interesting if they play a rematch against Acalanes. Concord can also play a significant role in D2 playing Ygnacio Valley twice in league play. One team I feel who is under the radar is St. Mary’s. Although I played against all of these teams last year, they all return key players this year. Overall in D2 I think the top teams are Ygnacio Valley and Acalanes with some teams such as Hayward, Concord, O’Dowd and St. Mary’s making some noise.

RCain

Northgate beat Stevenson 4 – 3. Their goalie (name?) carried their team with some great saves, NG could’ve very well been down 6 or 7 without him. AFoster scored two goals one of them a quick free kick.

Not sure which match Bkells, was watching between Mission and AV, Thought pretty even. Game should have been tied. Mission also Played Granada the next day in morning with all showing up. Bkells don’t make excuses for players not showing up. you should know what the word, assume means. On another note miss Ken, but new coach Scott will be fine. AV has a great program and was glad to play them

dan, Mission soccer

Matt Smith

De La Salle won 6-1.

Matt Smith

Some other scores…

Albany 3, Oakland Tech 0
St. Mary’s 2, Tech 2

DLSwireless

The DLS season started with a 6 to 1 victory over James Logan.

JPowell

NG is looking very promising this year – doing well thus far.
RCain, the keeper for the Stevenson game was Max Sonnier.

redandblack

Yes please to twitter!

bkells

Dan Christensen….I am not so sure what you are are saying.AV beat Mission 2-1 and score could have been more lopsided in favour of the Dons.

Matt Smith

I think what Dan is saying is that when a non-EBAL team challenged and plays on level footing with an EBAL team, most assume that it was because the EBAL team didn’t play well.
I think the EBAL is a great league with great teams, but I also think credit must be given to other teams when they play well. I think MSJ should be praised for their play. Same thing with CP beating AV. I know AV had a perfect storm hit them with Coach Berglin missing, and some key players being gone for various reasons, but CP had Ken Cheda, who is essentially a co-head coach with Edgar, missing, as well as missing some kids including their star player.
I guess I am saying we should be quicker to congratulate a team for its play first, and then get into the specifics of how/why it happened.

mudhen

As for Heyward losing to YV, they had played a tough league game only the day before and were without their best player, Rigo Castillo.
Frankly I have to wonder about the wisdom of not only keeping your star players in a game that is a foregone conclusion (vs. Tennyson) but risking further injury by playing a non league game the very next day. Even strong young men and women need some recovery time.
This is not to take away from YV though.I have watched them through the years and they are tough as nails.

Ball Don’t Lie

Well said Matt,

I like to read your posts because they are not biased. Look forward to your update today!

EBALDad

Well said Matt Smith in #139!
We, as a society, are very quick to lay blame or cry foul much sooner than we are to simply congratulate for a job well done.

bkells

Matt… I could not agree with you more.I had already mentioned that I thought CP would give AV a test.Sure enough CP beat them.No Excuses given on my part.CP was better team yesterday.In addition to missing head coach and few key players AV was flat most of game and CP won fair and square.The quality of players in the EBAL is excellent with 4-5 teams that will challenge DSL this year.

bkells

Can anyone provide update on DLS game yesterday?Are they that as good as score indicates?

Matt Smith

I didn’t see the DLS game, but I think the balance is once again the key. They always get so many players contributing.
And I think this Jones kid is the transfer from Las Lomas, who is a stud.

Mark L

Piedmont dominated Tennyson 3-0 last night. Should have tied O’Dowd on Wednesday as well as beaten San Lorenzo last week. This is a good team that will only get better as the season wears on.

Matt, In reference to #139, level headed response. Every year is different. I, as a coach for over 20 + years never make an excuse win or lose. You play with the squad at hand. Can’t thank you enough for keeping us coaches in perspective with stats, info and updates.